Canberra insider

The Commonwealth financial accountability review isn’t wrapped up yet, but Finance has published a summary of the feedback to the discussion paper launched by Minister
Penny Wong
in March. About 70 submissions were received – two-thirds from Commonwealth bodies, the rest from the private sector, professional representative bodies, not-for-profits, academics and individuals. One popular proposal was to better align standards for preparing budget bills, papers, financial statements and annual reports to enable comparisons and a clear read between budgeted and actual expenditure and performance. More than 40 per cent of submissions commented on it and all supported it outright or in principle.

Less popular (see previous) was the proposal to simplify appropriation bills by no longer appropriating to outcomes but retaining outcomes in the performance context. Forty per cent of submissions responded and were evenly split between outright support, in-principle support and disagreement. Only 13 per cent commented on the proposal to appropriate to portfolios (rather than individual agencies) and most were strongly opposed, including the Australian National Audit Office, which was not convinced there were “tangible benefits". Similarly, while only 10 per cent commented on the proposal to appropriate money directly to programs, most were opposed.

More popular (see previous) was the proposal to allow for pooled funding arrangements and for appropriated amounts to be more readily redistributed among entities pursuing shared objectives (Project Wickenby was cited in the discussion paper as one example of multi-agency tasks). Nearly 50 per cent of submissions commented on this proposal and there was strong interest and in-principle support, except for the Department of the Senate which said there were already transparent means of sharing resources that did not “undermine the authority of the Parliament". Fighting words.

Newly re-elected ACT Chief Minister
Katy Gallagher
announced a mini-restructure of the public service that includes a merger of ACT Treasury with the Chief Minister and Cabinet department(they’re actually called “directorates" after a review by former Defence secretary Allan Hawke last year). But the two functions will be retained as separate ministerial portfolios. That’s a bit like merging the departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury and Finance. One can only imagine the outraged mooing of sacred cows in Canberra if the federal government did the same thing.